Lost your certificate? Don't worry

Coming soon: An online govt portal to maintain and secure your academic documents

Coming soon: An online govt portal to maintain and secure your academic documents

Students who misplace or lose their educational degrees due to some reason can take a sigh of relief. All the juggling between college and university to procure degrees will be taken care of by a new legislation that has been passed in the parliament recently.

The National Academic Depository (NAD) Bill 2011 proposed by the ministry of human resource development (HRD) was given a nod by the Union cabinet on Tuesday.

According to this bill, the government will maintain a national database of schools, colleges, and universities in a D-MAT format, which could be accessed by students and the boards. Starting from standard 10 till university level, the results of all major examinations will be stored electronically under theu00a0 Securities and Exchange Board of India. The NAD will be capable of authenticating and reissuing certificates too. School boards, universities and certificate-issuing institutions will have direct linkages to the depository.

It will help students to keep a track of their degrees online and also help those who lose their certificates, years after passing the examinations, to procure duplicate ones easily. The database would also help deal with issues of forged certificates since it will enable online verification.

Jagdish Chinchore, vice-principal, Modern College said, "Just a couple of days back a student from our college who is now an IT professional approached us to reissue his certificates. He had passed out in 1992 and it's not possible to find a certificate that is so old. We asked him to approach the university. It's a tedious job for the boy to get a duplicate certificate. If the government's plans materialise then it will not only make students' work easy but also colleges' too."

Ujwala Patil, chairperson of the state board said, "The government may implement this technology in the next academic year. But will take a few years for the entire system to work properly."

Students too say that this bill will take some tension off their mind. Ishaan Lahiri, a senior secondary student said, "Keeping certificates secure is a tiring job. We have to get them laminated in order to keep them safe. All that work won't be required after we have our degrees online."